Collaboration in the Digital Domain

Dr Steven Buchanan & David McMenemyDepartment of Computer and Information Sciences

University of Strathclyde(Correspondence to: steven.buchanan@cis.strath.ac.uk,

david.mcmenemy@cis.strath.ac.uk)

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

Introduction

• In a rapidly evolving and increasingly complex global society, partnerships and alliances are considered essential to future library success1,2.

• Collaboration in the digital domain offers opportunity to provide enhanced services and extended reach to the community, and responds to new technology trends and evolving user preferences.

• However, currently limited research regarding collaborative best practice, and the extent and degree of digital collaboration.

• This paper reports on UK public library collaboration, with a particular focus on emergent digital services.

Emergent Digital services

• Digital libraries, in pursuit of personalised interactive user experiences, have evolved from content-centric systems to person-centric systems, with their role having shifted from static storage and retrieval of information to facilitation of communication and collaboration3.

• Arguably inherent within such a role is the provision of digital services, which provide a digital service/resource via a digital transaction4.

• Emergent digital services range from the relatively straightforward, such as provision of online tools and space for collaboration, sharing of content etc., to online reference services, to more complex distributed systems, such as local archive collections purposefully linked to school curriculum’s via VLEs.

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

Collaboration

• Collaboration “more involved cooperation, where there is a more in-depth sharing and pooling of resources”5.

• General recognition that collaboration creates mutual advantage, and that partners work towards a common goal.

• Reported benefits for libraries:– Enhanced access to services7,8.– Improved quality of services9,10.– Increased visibility and awareness of services7,8,10,11.– Improved relationships with other organisations and the opportunity to develop

or acquire expertise, or preserve traditional skills10,12,13.– Improved Value For Money (VFM) via shared costs14.

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

Collaboration

• Zorich et al6 propose a ‘collaboration continuum’:

• Convergence the ultimate end state with services, functions, and infrastructure integrated via common processes: – Functional structures convenient for definition of reporting lines and

organisation of physical assets, but can create barriers to effective workflow, introduce resource inefficiencies, and encourage parochial domain views and behaviour.

– A process view transcends the functional view, encouraging an organisation to focus on how individual groups should cooperate to achieve customer satisfaction, irrespective of functional or organisational boundary.

• University of Strathclyde i-Lab group currently researching common processes beginning with a public library process model…

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

contact cooperation coordination collaboration convergence

Library Processes

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

Collaborative practices

• Collaboration extending beyond archives and museums, to other cultural organisations, educational institutions, social services, health services, industry and commerce:

– Libraries, schools and higher educational establishments have a shared interest in developing literacy skills and supporting student information needs with partnerships actively encouraged by funding bodies2,8,15.

– Libraries encouraged to form partnerships with the basic skills education sector to reach adult literacy learners within local communities16.

– Libraries often work with social services departments on social inclusion literacy initiatives, particularly in providing reading material and a point of contact for immigrants and designated disadvantaged groups within the community17.

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

Collaborative practices

• cont.

– Partnership initiatives between libraries and healthcare organisations range from collaborative research in assisting with literature reviews on healthcare topics to joint initiatives to distribute health information18.

– Libraries, museums, and archives, share a common remit to preserve and promote the community’s cultural heritage19,13,10. Library collaboration with museums particularly common8.

– Libraries and arts organisations co-host exhibitions, raising awareness of holdings, and providing opportunity to promote literacy with art appreciation15.

– Libraries partner with broadcasting organisations to collect, catalogue, preserve and facilitate access to their cultural repository20,21.

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

Collaborative digital services

• Pilot study of Scottish public library websites providing an indicative review of emergent services, encompassing 32 regional library networks and the national library.

• An inspection-based approach guided by a specification derived from Williams4 and Zorich et al6:– A digital service provides digital content via digital transaction.– A collaborative digital service will demonstrate involved cooperation

between partners, characterised by coordinated or convergent activity, and shared resources.

• Degree of digitization identified via service description and/or service execution, with particular attention to online/offline status of transaction and fulfillment steps.

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

Findings

• Services which could be classified as being both digital and collaborative (but to various degrees, with none entirely digital), were as follows: – 14 of 32 public libraries are participants in ‘Ask Scotland’ a pilot online virtual

information service staffed by librarians.– 1 of 32, in partnership with a local University, offers distance learning MS

Certified Application Specialist (MCAS) courses with the online VLE supported by a library learning support officer.

– 3 of 32 work in partnership with local Education Services to provide learning support to schools, with library reading lists structured by school topic and year. Students can browse lists online, check availability, and reserve online.

– The National Library provides online teaching materials designed to make historical collections accessible and relevant to the needs of the history departments of Scottish schools.

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

Findings cont.

• For information, non-digital collaboration identified was as follows:– 1 of 32, in partnership with the Scottish Book Trust and Home-Start, and

involving a children’s author and illustrator, are working in an area of socio-economic deprivation to support parents’ reading and writing skills and embed a love of book sharing (with young children) within the community.

– 2 of 32, in partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support and the National Health Service (NHS), provide a Cancer Information and Support Service. The libraries provide a drop in space staffed (part time) by experienced cancer care nurses and trained volunteers.

– 4 of 32, in partnership with the NHS, provide a Book Prescription Service. As part of clinical consultation, GPs and other health professionals can offer their patients a recommended book to help them better understand and manage their condition, borrowable from their local library.

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

Discussion

• Within the Scottish public library sector there is currently limited evidence of collaborative digital services.

• All libraries provided a relatively comprehensive set of links to external online information resources (NewsUK, Credo Reference, Britannica, Oxford Reference, BBC Education Scotland, NHS Inform etc.), but such links are arguably, at best, examples of passive cooperation rather than involved cooperation or convergence.

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

Discussion cont.

• Additional insight provided by a recent study22 that evaluated the strategic plans of 28 of the 32 libraries sampled for this study.

• The study found approximately half of the strategic plans to be variously incomplete, contradictory or uncoordinated; and recommended that Scottish public libraries improve not only their completeness of plans, but also their precision, specificity, explicitness, coordination, and consistency, and overall mapping to library services.

• Digitization identified as a key goal in several strategic plans, but found to be broadly and generically defined with limited supporting specification.

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

Conclusion

• If the Scottish public library sector is typical of the sector as a whole, evidence suggests that collaborative initiatives are not widespread nor necessarily coordinated, and that as a consequence, public libraries are failing to fully capitalize on the opportunities offered by the digital domain, and their enviable position as a trusted information provider.

• It would appear that coordinated strategic and (information system) architectural planning is required, at both regional and national level, or an opportunity will be lost and a key societal role potentially diminished in the digital domain.

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

Conclusion cont.

• There are opportunities (beyond gateway portals) for shared procurement, development of online catalogue facilities, reference services, and active cross referral of patrons (as opposed to passive web links).

• Such opportunities could be further explored and verified through process modelling extending (in pursuit of Service Oriented Architecture) to identification of candidate application services which are shareable across organisations (for example: login, catalogue browsing, order creation, order fulfilment; order confirmation, etc.).

• Integrated, interactive systems, with seamless user navigation and interaction should be a key goal.

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain

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the literature.” Health Information and Libraries Journal 21 (2004): 3-19.2. Brophy, P. The library in the twenty-first century (2ed.), London: Facet Publishing, 2007.3. DELOS Digital library reference model: foundations for digital libraries version 0.98 . (2007). http://

www.delos.info/files/pdf/ReferenceModel/DELOS_DLReferenceModel_0.98.pdf.4. Williams, K., Chatterjee, S., and Rossi, M. “Design of emerging digital services: a taxonomy.” European

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References cont.

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14. Tanackoviae, S.F. and Badurina, B. “Collaboration as a wave of future: exploring experiences from Croatian Archives.” Library Hi Tech 26 (4) (2008): 557-574.

15. Block, M. The thriving library: successful strategies for challenging times. Medford, NJ: Information Today Inc, 2007.

16. Train, B. “Building up or breaking down barriers? The role of the public library in adult basic skills.” Library Review 52 (8) (2003): 394-402.

17. Department for Culture, Media & Sport. Framework for the future: libraries, learning and information in the next decade. London: Department of Culture, Media and Sport, 2003. http://www.culture.gov.uk/reference_library/publications/4505.aspx.

18. Swinkels, A., Briddon, J. and Hall, J. “Two physiotherapists, one librarian and a systematic literature review: collaboration in action.” Health Information and Libraries Journal, 23 (4) (2006): 248-256.

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References cont.

19. Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. Museums, libraries and archives – inspiring learning, building communities. London: Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, 2007. http://www.mla.gov.uk/what/policy_development/~/media/Files/pdf/2007/inspiring_learning_building_communities.

20. Walker, C. and Manjarrez, C.A. Partnerships for free choice learning: public libraries, museums and public broadcasters working together: Report for the Urban Institute and Urban Libraries Council. (2003). http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/410661_partnerships_for_free_choice_learning.pdf .

21. Smith, C. “Building an Internet archive system for the British Broadcasting Corporation.” Library Trends 54 (1) (2005): 16-32.

22. Buchanan, S., McMenemy, D., Ruthven, I., and Cousins, F. “From strategy to information systems architecture: a review of public library strategic planning.” International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science, London (June 2010).

ILI 2011: Collaboration in the Digital Domain